


Knowing?

by millygal



Series: Season 13 [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Introspective Castiel, M/M, Season Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 02:02:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10981029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millygal/pseuds/millygal
Summary: What idiot decided this was a good idea?





	Knowing?

**Author's Note:**

> This is the oddest thing I've ever written. I have a head canon to do with the finale and the plan to trap Lucifer in the alt-reality.
> 
> I think Crowley and Castiel and Mary all knew what roles they were going to play, they just hadn't told Sam and Dean.
> 
> Thanks as always to my beta, jj1564, you rock all the socks!

Sam can’t possibly know.

Dean shouldn’t have to know.

Castiel wishes he didn’t know.

Crowley’s plan is a thing of crude disturbing beauty, and it’s nothing short of a miracle it came from the King of Hell himself.

It’s simple. Devastating but simple.

Dean and Sam are the first - and last - line of defence.

Except they really aren’t.

In the world they inhabit, Dean and Sam are the glue that holds the misfits together, keeps them fighting for right, even when right isn’t something a few of them are fussed about being.

Lucifer will lose. He may not know it, yet, but he _will_ lose.

Sam and Dean will slow him down.

Crowley will cement him in place.

Castiel will charge in like a good little cowboy.

Mary will force him back if all else fails.

If Castiel’s honest with himself he knows how cruel this plan is. Stupid and brave and quite possibly suicidal, but above all else, cruel.

In order to save Sam and Dean and their world, the angel must be party to a course of action that will destroy the brothers; tear them apart piece by piece.

It starts with allowing Lucifer to beat Dean to within an inch of his life and ends with Mary being forcibly removed from it.

If all goes to _plan_ Castiel won’t have to watch Dean mourn his mother or Sam cry over his lifeless body, but the angel already knows how it will end. From the second he’s swept off his feet by an archangel throwing his toys out of his celestial pram, Castiel **knows**.

And he’s sorry.

For everything.

***********

Awaking to the sound of Crowley throwing himself on his sword, Castiel pumps his legs and forces himself through the rift, and is heartened to hear Sam dragging Dean back out of it.

For a second, just a second, Castiel allows himself a chance to grieve a creature who should never have crawled and slithered it’s way into his heart.

Looking down at Crowley’s body, devoid of everything that made him a _King_ , Castiel lets his rage at the loss harden his resolve and throws himself at Lucifer.

And for the merest of moments he thinks they’ve won, thinks that Sam and Dean won’t have to watch their friend die or their Mother leave them, again, and then _nothing_.

*****************

It shouldn’t be happening, it should be downright impossible in fact, but Castiel’s essence can taste Crowley’s.

Castiel can sense the demon’s soul - blackened and hardened and brittle - but it’s there, floating aimlessly above a scene which neither creature thought would ever come to pass.

_”Feathers, what did you do?”_

**”What I had to”**

_”You always were a complete fool.”_

**”I would rather die a fool who stood up and was counted than live as a coward who _could_ have helped but chose to run.”**

_"I would say that's why I've lived longer than you but - clearly that's bollocks. So, Wings, what’s going to happen now?”_

_**“** _ **Purgatory, I imagine.”**

__”Well, bugger.”_ _

The last thing Castiel feels as his essence is whipped from this dimension is a heavy sense of sorrow, for the look of loss on Dean’s face and the knowledge that nothing the angel could have done would have saved the hunter this grief.

Castiel just hopes Sam is strong enough for the both of them, because who else is going to save the brothers from themselves, now?

 

_Fin._


End file.
